Abdolreza Pazouki, the chancellor of Iran University of Medical Sciences, said in a press conference at the Razi International Conference Center in Tehran on Saturday that about 12 percent of the population are diagnosed with diabetes and one-fourth of the Iranians are suffering from high blood pressure, both of which have their roots in obesity.
When the body mass index is higher than 35, the person is considered obese and needs to go ahead with metabolic surgery, he warned, noting that being overweight affects the life span in people from childhood to adulthood and that excessive obesity can decrease lifespan for around 20 years, so the obese people need surgery.
The head of the 5th International Congress of Bariatric and Metabolic Surgeries went on to say that bariatric surgery is not a cosmetic plastic one and the side effects of bariatric surgery are less than appendicitis and gallbladder surgeries.
The executive director of the congress, Foulad Eghbali, said that obese patients are prone to 21 kinds of cancer and that they are 20 times more likely to get infected with severe arthritis, heart attack and brain stroke.
Eghbali noted that bariatric and metabolic surgeries can be carried out on people between the ages of 16 and 65.
The 5th International Congress of Bariatric and Metabolic Surgeries is scheduled to be held at the Razi International Conference Center in Tehran from December 21 to 23, when 21 countries including the United States, Spain, and Germany will take part online and 190 articles will be presented.
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